


Codename: Kafka

by st_mick



Series: (Mis)Understandings [8]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: AFTER its been through the rift?, Codename: Kafka, M/M, More of Ianto's past, Torchwood One Secret File, What happens when you marinate a zygote in vortex energy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 20:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: As Ianto recovers, Tosh decrypts Yvonne Hartman's Torchwood One file on Ianto, Codename: Kafka.  It contains more information than his friends wish to see, and it raises new questions as to just who and what Ianto Jones is.  The Doctor is called in to help with the hornet's nest Torchwood seems to have inadvertently kicked.





	Codename: Kafka

Ianto slept for three days.  During that time, Jack, Tosh and Owen took turns watching over him.  Tosh did not stop crying for the first day.  Jack held on to her and shed more than a few tears of his own, though he mostly tried to save them for when he was alone in his bunker. 

On the second day, Jack decided to occupy Tosh by having her decrypt a file.  Codename: Kafka.  It was impressively secure – it took Tosh almost four hours to unlock its many layers of security.  When she did, they were all sorry for it, when they saw the first file.

It was a video file, footage taken by a cheap electronics store camera hidden in a seedy hotel room.  Fourteen year old Ianto Jones was shoved unceremoniously into the room by a man, presumably his father.  Ianto informed his father he would no longer be performing sex acts for money and turned to leave.

What followed was horrifying and unthinkable.  Ianto’s father beat him mercilessly and then raped him brutally.  The vile things he said were almost as bad as the violence.  When it was clear that he was too impotent to ‘finish’, he used his belt to take out his frustrations.  Finally, he left the boy, bloody and still on the floor.

The video kept rolling, and young Ianto regained consciousness with a rattling gasp and a groan of pain.  A small chuckle could be heard as he crawled to the phone to dial 999.  Young Ianto, still defiant, gritted out, “Told you I wouldn’t be tricking today.” 

The video stopped as the paramedics arrived.

“Jesus,” Owen swore.  He wrapped an arm around Toshiko, who was weeping again.

Jack found another bin to vomit into.

Once they all calmed, Tosh opened the next file, and Jack finally remembered how he knew Ianto’s mother.  It was one of Jack’s reports, dated February 22, 1983.  He had followed a woman through the rift during a negative spike.  Somehow they had returned a few hours after they left, despite six months having passed.

After quickly reading through the file, Owen and Tosh turned to stare at Jack, who was staring at the screen, his face pale.  “I was still a contractor, then,” he whispered.  “I wrote the report and turned it in, and never really thought about it, again.”

“Thought about what, Jack?” Owen demanded.

“There had been a lot of rift activity, concentrated in this one area.  It wasn’t far from a bus stop, near the estates.  So I started hanging out at the stop, taking readings.  Then, one day, this young mother walked up to the bus stop, holding a little girl’s hand.  She kissed the girl and handed her off to a neighbor – a babysitter, maybe.  Then she waited for the bus.”

He continued to stare at the file photo of young Glenda Jones and shook his head at how thoroughly he had buried the memory.  “I saw the negative rift spike.  It came in a wave and sort of just… grabbed her.  I grabbed her, as well, trying to keep her from being taken, but then we were both sucked in.  Ended up in the ass end of nowhere, a long way in the future.  But there were some friendlies.”

Jack went quiet, for a moment, remembering.  Tosh made an impatient noise, and Jack shook himself.  “We met some travelers who were willing to bring us back this way.  They had a few Sisters of Plenitude with them.”  He looked from Tosh to Owen.  “Catkind nuns, really advanced medical knowledge.”

At Tosh’s frown, Jack went on.  “The sisters were able to determine that Glenda had conceived, less than a week before the rift took her.  She was _so_ ill…  They were concerned she wouldn’t make it, never mind the child.  But then they spotted my vortex manipulator and decided to try to suspend the pregnancy, during the trip.”

“Suspend?” Owen frowned.

“Using the vortex manipulator, they were able to devise a way to slow down the pregnancy.” he trailed off, his head turning towards the medical bay.  Towards Ianto.

“Using?” Tosh prompted.

“Vortex energy.  They sort of… I don’t know… They were able to repair the vortex manipulator, at least for the purposes they intended.  Then they strapped it to her and her pregnancy only progressed at half the normal rate.  They were very excited by the prospect of trying something new,” he said, frowning.

“How is that even possible?” Owen asked.  “Or safe?”

“I don’t know.  She slept a lot.  The sisters looked after her.  I was busy earning our passage, in the engine room.  They said that two weeks was usually the maximum amount of time they had ever delayed a pregnancy by any other means, but they were worried for Glenda’s health, as well as the baby’s, if they did nothing.  But then they always seemed so pleased by how well she was doing, so I tried not to worry.”

“How long, Jack?” Owen was concerned, and he couldn’t say why.

“Quick trip, actually,” Jack replied.  “Only took about six months, to reach Earth.”  He frowned.

“So what does this mean?” Tosh turned to Owen.  “We’re talking six months of direct exposure to the vortex.”  She paused.  “Oh, God.  Could that have been what made her sick?”

“No, that’s not how vortex energy works,” Jack answered.  “The sisters were never concerned for the mother.  They said any impact would be on the child, but they were never clear about what that impact might be.”

“The impact to Ianto,” Tosh clarified.  “Just to be clear, she was pregnant with Ianto, yes?”

Jack nodded, a bit dazed.  “I… I never realized,” he said.  “When we arrived in orbit, the sisters were able to get the vortex manipulator sort of working.  Good for one jump, either through time or space, not both.  So I programmed it to return us to the same day we left.”

He looked at the picture, once more.  “When we returned, I Retconned her.  Took all six months.  She was found passed out at the bus stop, and that was how she discovered that she was three months pregnant.”

“Except she should have been six months along.”

“Physically, her progress was consistent with being one trimester along.  And since we know Ianto was born in August…” Jack sighed.

“Twelve-month gestation,” Owen frowned.  Where to even begin, to determine the impact of such a thing?

“It never even occurred to me to circle back and check on her.”

“Well, as a contractor, it would not have been your job to follow up,” Tosh reasoned. 

“But we spent six months together,” Jack said.  “We sort of became friends.”

“Jack, please say you didn’t shag the Tea Boy’s mother,” Owen said, frowning.

“Of course not,” Jack protested.  “The sisters were very clear that her health was at risk.  But we talked.  She was…” he trailed off. 

“What?” Tosh asked.

“Terrified of her husband.  And I just walked away,” Jack growled.  “I was so angry that the vortex manipulator had been working, but just worked for that one trip…  I blamed her,” he looked ashamed.

“Jack, Torchwood would not have allowed you to do anything,” Tosh reasoned.  “You would have put them in danger, if you had tried.”

“But London kept tabs.  We know they watched him, that they recruited him.”

“Yes.  There are hundreds of files, here.”  She scanned through, growing more annoyed as she looked.  “It looks like they knew about the abuse.  Certainly about the attack.  His school records are here.”  She read for a moment.  “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“He wasn’t kidding when he said he dumbed down his records,” Tosh whispered.  According to his altered records, his IQ was comparable to Gwen’s.  But according to this, he was in the stratosphere, somewhere between Jack and herself.  She heard Jack whistle as he looked over her shoulder.  Then she smirked.  “He must have disappointed them by burying all of his abilities and memories.  They wouldn’t have been able to even see what his potential was.  He buried everything but his intellect.  He outsmarted them, without even meaning to.”

Jack chuckled.  “But what about now?”

“Now I scan him,” Owen said, standing.

“But London did that,” Tosh pointed out, looking through the rest of the records.  “It’s all here.  They tested and re-tested and…” she frowned.  “That can’t be right.”

“What?” Jack asked.

“They noted that certain energy levels fluctuated, based on stress levels and other factors.  Yvonne bounced him from job to job, while he was working for her, to vary the pressure and stress and determine how it impacted the readings.  But I don’t understand what they are.”

“You can’t tell what they were measuring?” Owen looked over her shoulder.  “I can guarantee there was no stress like what he experienced here, when we found Lisa.”

“That’s just it.  They were measuring something that our instruments aren’t even calibrated for,” Tosh said.

Jack leaned in, then blinked, recognizing the readings.  “Well, based on what we just found out about Glenda, what hypothesis would you make?”

“I would guess vortex energy, but how can that be measured?” Tosh asked.

“There are all sorts of things that we’ve looked at, whenever Jack’s been killed,” Owen pointed out.  “Looks like they were zeroed in on artron energy, but that’s not the only thing to look for.”

“Do you still have a scanner calibrated for when Jack…” Tosh waved a hand, not wanting to actually say it.

“Yeah,” Owen said, going to his desk and pulling out one of the scanners.  “Wait…”  He looked at the readings and sighed.  “He said he was scanning himself once a week, for STD’s, right?”

Tosh turned and looked at Owen.  “Are you saying we have a reading for Ianto that we could use as a baseline, before yesterday?”

“Looks like this was from three weeks ago,” Owen said, sending the readings to Tosh’s computer.

“These readings look pretty normal,” she said.  “Consistent with the data from London, though we have more vortex-related measures, here.”

“Okay, here we go,” Owen said, descending into the med bay and scanning Ianto’s sleeping form.  As he walked back up the steps a few minutes later, he said, “Sending to you, now.”

Jack had a feeling he knew that they were going to see something completely different from the so-called baseline reading.  But nothing could prepare him for what they saw.  When Tosh pulled up the readings, they all gaped.

“What the fuck?” Owen exclaimed.

“Pulling up one of Jack’s readings,” Tosh whispered.

Looking at the two readouts, side-by-side, Jack swore.

“What does this mean?” Tosh asked.  “How is this even possible?”

“The power of the human mind is far more vast than anyone knows, even by my time,” Jack said.  “The potential is astonishing.  Given Ianto’s gifts and intellect, I would say when he buried his gifts, his mind kept him a completely normal human being, all these years.  But now…  What was the last thing he said?”

“He said, ‘It’s safe to be who I really am.’  But Jack, what exactly is that?” Tosh asked.

“Human, but… more?”  Jack shook his head.  “He survived being deleted by a Cyberman, Tosh.  Pull up the hotel video again.  No, just the end, once Ianto’s alone,” he quickly amended when she made to protest.  They watched again, and the gasp when he came to was all too familiar, in this new context.

“But… his scars.  If he…  He didn’t come back, healed.”

“Because he was suppressing most of his power.  I think he probably tried to suppress it all, but it’s not going to allow him to die.  To stay dead,” he amended quietly.

“Jack, what are you saying?” Tosh asked.

“C’mon, Tosh,” Owen said.  “He was steeped in the vortex, from almost the moment of conception.  For six months.  He spent a prolonged amount of time, developing _very_ slowly, in that environment.  I don’t know how he suppressed it, or how he was able to hide it, but look,” he gestured to the screen.  “His readings are practically identical to Jack’s.”

“But if that’s all it took to create an immortal, wouldn’t there be more out there?” Tosh asked.

“Maybe the rift energy helped it along.  Maybe it was that my vortex manipulator was broken.  Maybe…  There are a lot of variables that can’t necessarily be repeated.”

Tosh began very systematically to compare the readings, to see where the differences might be.  “The differences seem to almost…” she trailed off, shaking her head.  “Not the best analogy, but it’s like those energy-efficient lightbulbs.  It takes a while for them to come on to their full brightness.”

“Are you saying that Tea Boy is a dim bulb?” Owen quirked his lips in a half-smile.

“I have a feeling it’s only until his physiology becomes used to its natural state,” Tosh replied, fighting her own smile.

“We’ll take readings every few hours, to test your hypothesis,” Owen said, leaning in to look at the screen, again.

“Jack, what do we tell him?” Tosh asked.

Jack was leaning forward against his hands at her workstation, his head hanging down.  “I don’t know,” he whispered.  “I… I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” he exhaled raggedly.

“So when he wakes up,” Tosh began ticking things off on her fingers.  “He’ll be ‘reprogrammed’, hopefully no longer dissociating from reality, off-the-scales psychic, and… immortal?”  She looked from Owen to Jack, horrified.  “What have we done?  It’s too much!”

Jack had his phone out.  “Martha?  Can you call himself?  You’re with him?  Great.  We need help, here.”  He gave her a quick rundown of the events of the past few days.  “Please, tell him he needs to get here on time,” he pleaded. 

Within moments, the TARDIS began to materialize.  Martha ran out first, followed by the Doctor and then Donna, who looked around.  “They have a dinosaur,” she remarked, in the same tone she would use to say, “It’s just gone three in the afternoon.”

“Jack, what’s wrong?” Martha asked.  She’d never heard such a lost tone from her friend.  Looking at him, her concern only grew.  “What’s happened?”

“It’s Ianto,” he managed to say.  “I… I don’t know…”  He looked to Owen and Tosh, not knowing where to begin.

Owen stepped forward.  “Something Jack said triggered something from Ianto’s past.  Near as we can tell, he suffered a psychotic break.”  In the clipped, clinical fashion of doctors, Owen outlined what had happened.  “Before you start in, we none of us knew about this part of his past.”

He went on to describe how they had administered the dilexium, and what Ianto had told them, about his childhood, Torchwood One, and his long-buried gifts.  He also described their attempt at reprogramming him, and ended with the decryption of the Kafka file.

“Kafka?” The Doctor looked disgusted.  “What was on it?”

There was nothing for it but to show them the contents of the file.  Owen and Tosh went down to the med bay to avoid watching it, again.  Jack tried not to watch or listen, but he couldn’t block out what was happening on the screen. 

Donna held Martha as the latter cried during the video, Donna’s silent tears falling more slowly only because she didn’t actually know Ianto, as yet.  The Doctor looked old and sad.  Then he saw the file on Glenda Jones, and Jack once again explained what had happened.

The Doctor read through the rest of the files, including the scans they had taken that afternoon, at lightning speed.  “Jack,” he said, leaning back and tossing his glasses onto Tosh’s workstation. 

“I swear, I didn’t remember Glenda, even when I met her again, last year.  And I didn’t know that what the sisters were doing would have this sort of consequence.  You have to know that…”

“Of course I do,” the Doctor replied, not unkindly.  “Bloody cats.”  He started looking back through the readings, again.  “So you think he was repressing all of it?”

“Except for not staying dead,” Jack replied.  He told the Doctor about the cyberman attempting to delete Ianto at Canary Wharf, and showed him the end of the motel room video, again.

“Bring him into the med bay in the TARDIS,” the Doctor stood and headed for the police box.  “I’ll run some scans and see what I might be able to do to help him, when he wakes.  Even if the Torchwood One results were accurate, waking up with that level of ability after years of suppression will be painful.  But if he’s at a higher level than that…” he trailed off.  “He’ll need help.”

Jack headed down to the med bay, where Owen was already pulling down the IV bag and wrapping Ianto in a blanket, so Jack could more easily carry him.  To their credit, Tosh and Owen were only slightly more impressed with the interior of the TARDIS than Donna had been with Myfanwy.

“Yep, okay, so there’s that,” Owen said, glancing around as he followed Jack.

Tosh nodded, looking around as she followed along.

***


End file.
